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My personal theory of autism

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Janissy
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03 Mar 2015, 9:12 am

IkariGendo wrote:
1. Numerous studies have found brain structure anomalies specific to autism.
2. Most of these anomalies involve increases in size and reduction in function of these structures.
3. The overall rate of autism in the population is rising.


To get more specific about point (2), the increase in size and reduction in function seems to happen because some expected synaptic pruning doesn't happen in childhood.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/22/health/brains-of-autistic-children-have-too-many-synapses-study-suggests.html?_r=0

New York Times wrote:
The finding provides clues to how autism develops from childhood on, and may help explain some symptoms like oversensitivity to noise or social experiences, as well as why many people with autism also have epileptic seizures.


You are noting this too (I think) but then assuming the cause of the expected pruning is environmental.


IkariGendo wrote:
Now let's throw in two other facts.

4. Prenatal and neonatal care is improving at a dramatic rate.
I am a child of the '60's. My mother has never smoked and has probably had a total of one six pack of beer in her lifetime.........

5. Humans evolved in an environment of toxic woodsmoke and borderline malnutrition.
.......
All that being said, I suspect that humans evolved certain brain structures to be massively redundant and to be ablative. Autism is what happens when these structures are not pared back by the environment.

If my theory is correct, we will continue to see autism rates rise.

Feedback, anyone?


(I deleted your illustrations of the environmental factors to save space)

In the above you are guessing that environmental factors caused the pruning, specifically smoke inhalation and malnutrition. But the research shows that the pruning happens via timed autophagy and is not caused by environmental factors. In autism that autophagy just isn't happening (or isn't happening enough) because the mTOR protein is dysregulated.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25155956

Quote:
Our findings suggest that mTOR-regulated autophagy is required for developmental spine pruning, and activation of neuronal autophagy corrects synaptic pathology and social behavior deficits in ASD models with hyperactivated mTOR.


How did mTOR get dysregulated? The current theory is genetic.
http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v37/n1/full/npp2011210a.html


My guess is that the broadness of the autism spectrum will turn out to be due to differences in the degree of the (lack of)pruning. All this does dovetail with the Intense World Theory.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3010743/
(Their proposed mechanism isn't the same but the intensity of the world and reaction to it is the same.)
Too much information. Drowning in data.



Adamantium
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03 Mar 2015, 9:45 am

Awesome post, Janissy!

Great links, and a wonderfully clear exposition of the pruning issues and role of mTOR.

Are you a popular science writer? (in places other than here, that is)



Janissy
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03 Mar 2015, 9:53 am

Adamantium wrote:
Awesome post, Janissy!

Great links, and a wonderfully clear exposition of the pruning issues and role of mTOR.

Are you a popular science writer? (in places other than here, that is)


Thanks :P

I'm not a popular science writer, it's just a style I gravitate to even when I shouldn't. In college I used to routinely lose points on research papers and get professor comments that I sounded too much like a popular science writer (which is frowned on in academia). :? But here it's ok .



Adamantium
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03 Mar 2015, 10:16 am

Janissy wrote:
In college I used to routinely lose points on research papers and get professor comments that I sounded too much like a popular science writer (which is frowned on in academia). :? But here it's ok .


That's a shame. I think they must have been thinking of bad popular science writers. Anyone who thinks there is something wrong with writing like Carl Sagan or Stephen J. Gould is deeply confused. I think well written papers are written in an easy natural style with minimal jargon and employing exactly those technical terms that are necessary and no more. The goal should never be to limit the audience or make the communication unnecessarily obscure.

To share a scientific perspective whenever possible seems like a moral duty in a world in which a scientifically illiterate populace must make decisions about how to employ and regulate technologies and processes of far reaching consequence.

Thanks for doing it so well! :D



kraftiekortie
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03 Mar 2015, 10:22 am

I agree.

In order for relevant theories to become well-known to the general public, the jargon has to be dispensed with, unless it is explained thoroughly.

The mission of Science is to make life easier for everybody, and to attempt to explain phenomena.



Adamantium
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03 Mar 2015, 10:55 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
The mission of Science is to make life easier for everybody, and to attempt to explain phenomena.


I have to disagree! 8O 8O 8O

The "explain phenomena" part is right--the mission of science is to understand reality.

But making life easier for everybody is a frequent happy side-effect, not the mission.

It could be said that science is a means of making people happier to the extent that being able to make rational decisions is related to happiness, and the ability to make rational decisions is contingent on being informed about the nature of reality.



kraftiekortie
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03 Mar 2015, 10:59 am

That's precisely what I mean when I say "make people happy."



starkid
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04 Mar 2015, 6:31 pm

I do not understand this hypothesis. What do increases in prenatal and neonatal care and living around woodsmoke have to do with redundant brain structures and an increase in autistic people?

Whatever the connection, I think the premises are too simplistic. Fetuses may experience less exposure to cigarette smoke and other substances than they suffered in the past, but some societies are now exposing people to many new substances that were rare or nonexistent back then. One must take account of the number of pregnant womyn on pharmaceuticals now vs. previously, for example.

One must also take a look at which sections of the autistic community are experiencing this increase in incidence. Is it concentrated in children who seem to develop normally, then regress? If so, was that regression destined from birth, or was it partially environmental?

IkariGendo wrote:
5. Humans evolved in an environment of toxic woodsmoke and borderline malnutrition.


This statement I particularly do not understand. Are you implying that borderline malnutrition was common throughout human development, like, for thousands of years, all over the world? We've not been getting enough to eat for most of our existence on this Earth?



jacobadom8
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05 Mar 2015, 6:30 am

I don’t think that occurrence of autism has increased over the past years. It’s just that people are more open to the idea of accepting that their kid might be autistic. I once talked to the director of a top school for kids with autism (Rebecca School)



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06 Mar 2015, 3:59 pm

Sethno wrote:
IkariGendo wrote:
I speak here as an autodidactic layman looking at autism spectrum disorder from the inside, not an expert, but I would like feedback on my theory.

Let's start with a few givens:

1. Numerous studies have found brain structure anomalies specific to autism.
2. Most of these anomalies involve increases in size and reduction in function of these structures.
3. The overall rate of autism in the population is rising.

Now let's throw in two other facts.

4. Prenatal and neonatal care is improving at a dramatic rate.
I am a child of the '60's. My mother has never smoked and has probably had a total of one six pack of beer in her lifetime. My father quit smoking long before he met my mother, so there were no smokers living in my home during my mother's pregnancy, but that was a wild exception at the time. Prenatal exposure to alcohol and cigarette smoke has dropped dramatically in the United States. Gone are the days when there were ashtrays in the grocery stores and doctors offices, and physicians recommended that pregnant women control their weight by having a smoke if they felt hungry.

5. Humans evolved in an environment of toxic woodsmoke and borderline malnutrition.
Until the invention of the electric light in 1879, artificial light meant fire. From the early hearths and braziers without chimneys to the later fireplaces, oil lamps and candles, these filled homes with various amounts of smoke. The electric stove didn't start to become popular until the 1920's. Even now, gas stoves and ovens are the favorites of people who want fine temperature control of their cooking. Wood, coal or gas stoves all create combustion byproducts. Famine remains a significant problem in many parts of the world. America saw its last major famine in the 1930's, during the Dustbowl and the Great Depression. During WWII, the most common reasons for enlistees to be declared unfit for service were the lasting effects of childhood malnutrition.

All that being said, I suspect that humans evolved certain brain structures to be massively redundant and to be ablative. Autism is what happens when these structures are not pared back by the environment.

If my theory is correct, we will continue to see autism rates rise.

Feedback, anyone?


I know for a fact there's no way taking smoke into your lungs contributes in any way to health. Quite the opposite. You may be over-thinking this.


http://www.livescience.com/15115-5-heal ... sease.html

But I see no evidence of a link between inhaling smoke and avoiding autism, apart from the fact that both have been falling over time, which isn't strong evidence.